These cover a range of reference material both fictional and nonfictional, such as; programme guides, “Making Of” books that cover behind the scenes information, in-universe books detailing information that was not covered within the narrative and purely illustrated books that showcase a particular artist’s work.

During the 1970s these books were almost entirely published by Target Books, who also published the novelisations of Doctor Who. These publications were combination of behind the scenes or “Making Of” books and themed books, concentrating on “Monsters” or particular aliens such as Terry Nation’s Dalek Special and The Adventures of K9 and Other Mechanical Creatures.

The 1980s can be seen as the real beginning of Doctor Who non-fiction publications, with several large format books being published during this time. Many of these were written by Peter Haining, who contributed five lengthy books concerning the production and history of Doctor

There both fictional, though non-narrative works such as Doctor Who: Monsters and Villains and also nonfiction books like Doctor Who: The Inside Story and for the first time since 1996’s publication of Doctor Who: The Script of the Film, Doctor Who: The Shooting Scripts was published which contained all the scripts from the series that had aired that year.

During the latter part of of the 2000s it continued to be a mix of reference books that were fictional and nonfictional, though the fiction-based books outweighed the non-fiction works.